


Wear the Name of a Man Known Dead

by dridri93



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Dogma Saved, Fix-It, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, No Character Death, Post-Umbara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25582363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dridri93/pseuds/dridri93
Summary: Clone Trooper Dogma is dead. Long live Clone Trooper Dogma.
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox & Dogma (Star Wars)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 132
Collections: Clone Wars Saved Exchange 2020





	Wear the Name of a Man Known Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WritingCyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingCyan/gifts).



> This fill is for a prompt by WritingCyan for Dogma somehow being saved (which I am always down for) and meeting Fox. You've given me So Much inspiration these past two months; I don't know how I could repay you. I wasn't able to fit in the requested Corrie shenanigans this time, friend, but I hope some fic in which Fox is not buried in a truck-bed full of angst fosters joy!

Nearly four days had passed since Dogma had been removed from Umbara. He wasn’t certain about that timeframe, but he’d slept three times and been provided nine meals, counting thirdmeal on the day he was removed. His hands had been uncuffed once the LAAT/i docked in the interstellar transport, and he’d been mostly left alone in his cell. He didn’t know any of the vode on guard duty, even if they wore 501st blue, and the cold shoulders they’d been giving him suggested that excess conversation would be met with blank plastoid at best.

The meals allowed him to keep time, at least. Logic suggested that the vode transporting him would not be varying mealtimes to induce confusion and suggestibility for interrogation; Dogma had already confessed. Therefore, sometime in the near future Dogma would be provided with thirdmeal. If he remembered relative galactic positions correctly, they would arrive shortly after on Coruscant.

Dogma didn’t understand _why_ he was being brought to Coruscant instead of Kamino. It made no sense. No clone was given a court-martial, and he had confessed to his treason. There was no need for a formal process on Coruscant before being sent to Kamino for decommission or reconditioning, whichever the Kaminoans deemed more necessary.

When he had dared to ask the vode guarding him when he was being handed a ration bar on what Dogma guessed was the second day in transit, all he’d been told was “Commander’s orders.” He had to accept that, even as he wondered _which_ Commander gave the orders.

Some amount of time passed in his cell; Dogma didn’t bother keeping track. Sure enough, he was eventually handed another ration, marking thirdmeal, and, a short amount of time later, he was cuffed, shepherded back to the LAAT/i, and felt the shakes of atmo entry rock the durasteel under his feet. He tried to rock with the motion, but his cuffed hands left him off-balance and he almost toppled into the vod to his right. He caught himself with a grunt before he bumped into the trooper and barely heard, “Watch yourself, traitor,” through the vod’s audio-muted bucket.

And, well. He had followed the orders of a traitor to attempt to execute honorable vode who had just wanted to keep as many alive as they could. He could see that, in hindsight. Maybe the label had merit.

Logic didn’t make the name hurt less.

The LAAT/i settled smoothly onto a landing pad and Dogma moved to stand at the doors just before his guards could pull him forward. He had _some_ dignity; he wasn’t about to let himself be dragged by the elbows to whatever reckoning awaited.

The bay doors slid open to reveal a small contingent of two Corries, led by a Commander that Dogma knew he should know.

“Commander Fox, sir!” the vod who’d named him a traitor called out, coming to attention. “Prisoner transfer, sir?”

“Trooper,” Commander Fox acknowledged. “We’ll take it from here.”

The vod – Dogma had never even gotten his number and that felt wrong, to not know who delivered him to his likely death – nodded and stepped back. “Sir.”

The Corrie troopers stepped up to bracket him, one vod’s hands coming to rest on his still-armored and cuffed forearm. Dogma expected to be roughly pulled along, but instead the hand just rested there. In the background, the Commander sent the LAAT/i on its way and turned back.

Even through his visor, Commander Fox’s eyes burned into his. “CT-5382 is dead, do you understand?”

Dogma blinked. He managed to hold back the urge to check himself for fatal wounds. “Sir?” He didn’t feel dead.

“Welcome to the Coruscant Guard, CT-42-8605. We’re lucky to have you, Private Dogma.” Commander Fox turned as if to leave, and Dogma had so many _questions_. What did that _mean_?

He planted his feet on the duracrete of the landing platform and refused to move until he had _answers_. “Sir, I–”

The vod to his left nudged him forward. “Let’s get your obnoxiously blue _shebs_ off the platform and uncuffed before a CorSec grunt has questions, vod,” he muttered.

“I – blue? Uncuffed?” Dogma stuttered. Nothing made sense. He ran down a checklist of what he knew.

  1. He killed a Jedi.
  2. For killing a Jedi, he should, by the regulations of the Grand Army of the Republic (section 1024, subsection 42c), be on Kamino undergoing evaluation for potential abnormalities before being either reconditioned or decommissioned.
  3. He was not on Kamino.
  4. He was in fact on _Coruscant_ , and his prisoner transport had been met by the single most important trooper on-planet.
  5. Commander Fox had just said that he – that _CT-5382_ , that was _him_ – was dead.
  6. He was not dead, as far as he was aware.
  7. Commander Fox had referred to him with the wrong CT designation, one of a much younger trooper.
  8. As far as he knew, Commander Fox was not undergoing a mental break, and none of the Corries around him found it odd.
  9. His 501st blue was _not_ obnoxious, and that vod could kiss his _shebs_.



Dogma came out of his thoughts to find himself walking, mostly against his will, away from the landing platform and the last gasps of sanity he’d had.

“Back with us, Dogma?” the vod to his right, who had a feather carved into his armguard, asked. The cuffs around his wrists fell open and disappeared into the vod’s belt pouch.

Dogma did not whimper, and he did not scream _what is happening?!_ He was tempted, but as long as he wore his armor he still represented the 501st. What he did was this: He asked, in what he thought was a very level and rational tone of voice, “What in the nine Corellian hells is _going on_?”

Silence fell, and Dogma had no choice but to keep moving as the Corrie squad pulled in tight around him. He tried not to say anything else; he didn’t _actually_ want to die. As much as it was the next logical step in his short life’s path based on what he knew.

They were almost to the Corrie barracks when Commander Fox said, “Your name is still Dogma; we won’t take that from you.”

“…Okay?”

“As far as anyone else, including that 501st squad that dropped you off, knows, we’ve taken you to the GAR prison to be processed and placed in a cell to await execution.”

Dogma glanced around, just to make _sure_ that they weren’t heading for the prison, though his uncuffed hands made it unlikely. The Corrie barracks still loomed, mostly-dark in the neon-flickering Coruscant night gloom. He wondered briefly what the squad that ferried him from Umbara thought about that, if they even cared. They probably didn’t. Dogma convinced himself that it didn’t hurt. “You aren’t doing that,” Dogma clarified, because he could only make a plan if he had the pertinent information and rules of engagement.

The vod with the feather huffed a laugh, which came out as a buzz through his helmet, muttering, “Thanks for the trust, vod.”

Dogma tried not to flinch at being called _vod_ , a privilege he hadn’t expected to be given again. By the feeling of eyes on the sides of his head, he probably failed. He stayed quiet. No one liked heavy silences; someone would fill it. He could be patient and wait for more information.

“The Guard, and I specifically, just received a recruit to act as my… aide de camp, I suppose,” Commander Fox said, voice nonchalant. “This trooper will handle all non-confidential paperwork and the direction of civilian traffic away from my office when my time is otherwise occupied.”

“Giving you a chance to sleep for once, you mean,” the vod to his left muttered just loudly enough to be heard.

Dogma waited for the punchline. He sympathized with this trooper, who sounded like he was getting the roughest first assignment Dogma had heard of that wasn’t front-lines scouting into occupied territory, but he didn’t see how this applied to him. The silence stretched, as if the Corries were waiting for him to say something, so he ventured, “That recruit sounds… industrious?”

Obviously he’d missed something, based on the Corries’ reactions. The vod with the feather – he needed to learn their _names_ , storms – rolled his eyes obviously, even under his bucket. “I know the 501st is a bunch of bantha-brains, but you came to us highly recommended, vod. Don’t make the Marshall Commander a liar; come on.”

 _Marshall Commander?_ What did Marshall Commander Cody – he was the only Marshall Commander Dogma had ever met, surely none of the others knew him well enough – have to do with this?

Commander Fox sighed. Dogma tried not to slump; he’d obviously done something wrong, broken some unspoken rule that he hadn’t known. “Vod’ika,” the Commander said gently, looking back over his shoulder, “ _you_ are that recruit. Cody pulled some strings to get you brought to Coruscant with the body of that _demagolka_ Krell and called in a couple favors to get you a new start.” Commander Fox shrugged. “Joke’s on him. I would’ve taken you in for free once I heard how you took out that traitor.”

Dogma didn’t _understand_. At least now the Commander had finally given him the missing puzzle pieces that they’d all been talking around for the entire walk, but the picture that puzzle formed blurred and defied his understanding.

He tried to list what he knew now.

  1. He was not going to be decommissioned, on Coruscant or on Kamino. This understanding filled him with unfamiliar relief.
  2. Commander Cody somehow had a hand in this. Did Captain Rex reach out to him? How did the Marshall Commander learn about him, just a common trooper?
  3. Commander Fox had managed to find or forge him a new identity, CT-42-8605. The number didn’t fit, but he got to keep his name at least.
  4. He already had a position with the Coruscant Guard as a glorified secretary.
  5. The vode around him called him _vod_.
  6. He wasn’t in cuffs.
  7. He wasn’t going to die.



Dogma had to take a second, his legs moving mindlessly in lockstep with the vode around him but his mind still miles away, to take that in. He’d accepted his death days ago, when he pulled Fives’ pistol from its holster and took the shot that Captain Rex couldn’t. That he wasn’t going to die… he didn’t know how to feel. Relief and confusion and a shock of bitterness – he’d _betrayed_ his vode, he should be punished, not rewarded – warred in his head.

The doors to the Corrie barracks loomed out of the Coruscant gloom in front of Dogma and the squad bracketing him.

“Sir,” Dogma tried, “why are you doing this? I betrayed my _vode_ , I almost got Jesse and Fives _shot_ –” He choked on the words. He didn’t deserve any of this.

Commander Fox stopped and turned to face him, pulling off his bucket to look at him eye to eye. The sight of another vod’s face calmed something in Dogma, some small animal part that begged for connection. “Dogma,” he said, “I would do this for any vod. You were misled by a traitor and a _demagolka_ , and I understand that. If you truly feel the need for punishment, I can assign you KP. But, on my honor as Commander and a vod, I will _not_ allow any of my vode to be killed on my planet if I can stop it. Am I understood?”

“Besides,” feather-arm (he needed to learn their _names_ ) piped up, “after a tenday of telling the same ten Senatorial aides kindly to kark off and go bother CorSec for what they need and signing the same form in triplicate, you’ll be begging for mercy.”

“Can it, Sen,” Commander Fox said. “Let Dogma make his own decision.” The doors behind the Commander beckoned, dark and unmoving.

Dogma knew that he didn’t exactly have any other choices. The only other choice he could see was to go back to being CT-5382 and die, and he didn’t actually want to do that now that another path had opened. “How pointed can my language be, sir?” Dogma asked.

At least if he was allowed to be as sharp-tongued as he liked, he could have some fun in the job.

Commander Fox grinned, a slice of white teeth with a vulpine twist that gave credence to his name. “As long as I don’t get a personal complaint, trooper, you can say whatever you want.”

Dogma let a sly grin peel open his own lips. “You might regret that, sir,” he said. “But alright.” He stepped forward, pulling the others with him, moving around the Commander, toward the barracks door. “I accept your terms.”

Commander Fox stepped forward, swiping into the barracks and stepped aside to let Dogma follow him in.

“Good,” was all he said, that vulpine grin still on his lips. “I look forward to seeing you work, Private Dogma.” The Commander nodded and turned, shrugging on his bucket, leaving Dogma and the two vode around him in the entryway.

Sen stepped in behind Dogma. “First things first, vod,” he said, “we need to get you in some proper paint. Blue just doesn’t suit your complexion.”

Dogma glanced down at his 501st blue. It hurt to imagine scraping it off, to imagine removing that last connection to the legion he’d called his own. “Yeah,” he said quietly, smile falling. “Guess I’ll have to change my face, huh. Too much of a coincidence to have a new vod with my marks show up.”

“Or you can keep your bucket on,” the mostly-silent vod to his left said. “Paint your armor Guard-red, even Guard-standard, make a few changes to that if you feel the need, but you don’t have to show your face to anyone but a Guard if you don’t want.”

“Shev has a point,” Sen added. “The only vode from outside the Guard the Commander gets coming to his office are Commanders or above, and they either won’t know your paint or won’t care. You can keep your bucket on for plausible deniability or to better stonewall Senator Taa’s fifth attempt to get a ‘clone escort’ in the last month.”

Dogma tried to imagine his armor in Corrie red and couldn’t quite manage. He didn’t have an _attachment_ to his paint, but it was _him_. Still, he saw the point in that he couldn’t work in the Guard offices wearing 501st Legion paint. It would just have to be something he got used to. That he had the time to get used to now.

Dogma breathed in, tasting the exhaust wash of thousands of ion engines and the mustiness of miles of duracrete, and accepted that the life he’d known was over. CT-5382 was dead, as far as the galaxy knew. It was time to be CT-42-8605.

“Alright,” he said, summoning a shadow of the grin he’d worn earlier. “When do I start?”

**Author's Note:**

> The two OCs are Sen (from senaar, or "bird") and Shev (from shev'la, "silence"). I didn't intentionally steal or borrow an OC near as I can tell (this fandom has so many and I love them all, but they are admittedly hard to track), but if need be (or if you just want to talk about TCW or Star Wars in general), find me on Tumblr at medic-kix.


End file.
